Posted at 2018.12.24 Category : 未分類
おしゃれ雑誌じゃないお堅い方のHarper'sで、フランス作家のミシェル ウエルベックがトランプを絶賛したエッセーを発表しました。フランス語はHを発音しないのでHarper'sは動画のニュースではアーパーズみたいになっています。In summary, President Trump seems to me to be one of the best American presidents I’ve ever seen.と語っています。
REVISION — From the January 2019 issue
One foreigner’s perspective
By Michel Houellebecq, John Cullen (Translator)
アメリカのメディアはスルーしていますが、フランスのメディアは取り上げてくれています。Tension-stirring French writer Michel Houellebecqという紹介の仕方ですね。
14/12/2018 - 09:42
Tension-stirring French writer Michel Houellebecq on Thursday published a defense of US President Donald Trump, calling him "one of the best American presidents I've ever seen."
In the essay printed in Harper's Magazine, a New York-based monthly, Houellebecq praises Trump for his protectionist trade policies, his disdain for the European Union and his willingness to negotiate with iron-handed leaders like Russia's Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un.
数少ない英文メディアの方はarguably the greatest French intellectual of our ageと彼を大作家のように持ち上げています。この記事が簡潔にまとめていますが、ウエルベック自身が軍事介入、多国籍主義に反対の立場なのでトランプを褒めるのは自然な流れになりますね。
Leading French intellectual says President is ‘classy’
Cockburn December 13, 2018
Michel Houellebecq, arguably the greatest French intellectual of our age, has just come out as a Trumpist, of sorts. In a deeply sardonic though sincere article in the latest issue of Harper’s, Houellebecq describes Trump as ‘one of the best American presidents.’
Houellebecq is a longstanding opponent of America’s liberal internationalism and military adventurism. He also dislikes multilateralism, and therefore cheers Trump’s criticism of the EU and NATO. He writes that he admired President Obama for ‘not adding Syria to the long list (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and others I’m no doubt forgetting) of Muslim lands where the West has committed atrocities.’
主なポイントは上記の2つの記事が触れてくれていますし、取り立てて面白い視点があるとは思えませんので特にオススメのエッセーではありません。Yutaが興味深く感じたのは、第二次世界大戦でもアメリカの支援はなくてよかったと言っている点と深入りはしていませんがOne of the constants in Europe’s long history is the struggle against Islamとはっきりとイスラムへの敵対心を顕にしている点でした。
REVISION — From the January 2019 issue
One foreigner’s perspective
By Michel Houellebecq, John Cullen (Translator)
第二次世界大戦については何もアメリカの支援がなくても勝てたと言っているのではなく、アメリカの支援がなかったらソ連が西ヨーロッパも征服していただろうが、結局ソ連のような体制は崩壊したのだろうから、占領されても数十年ほどに過ぎなかったとさらっと語っています。
Let’s go back all the way to the United States’s last morally unquestionable and militarily victorious intervention, namely its participation in World War II: What would have happened had the United States not entered the war (an unpleasant alternate history)? Without a doubt, the destiny of Asia would have been greatly altered. The destiny of Europe, too, but probably somewhat less. In any case, Hitler would have lost just the same. What’s most probable is that Stalin’s armies would have reached Cherbourg. Some European countries that were spared the ordeal of communism would have suffered it.
A disagreeable scenario, I admit, but a brief one. Forty years later, the Soviet Union would have collapsed all the same, simply because it rested on an ineffective and bogus ideology. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the culture in which communism has been established, it hasn’t managed to survive for so much as a century—not in any country in the world.
People’s memories aren’t very long. The Hungarians, the Poles, the Czechs of today—do they really remember that they used to be communists? Does the way they envision what’s at stake in Europe differ so much from the Western European viewpoint? It seems extremely unlikely. To adopt for a moment the language of the center-left, the “populist cancer” is not at all limited to the Visegrád Group. Above all, the arguments used in Austria, in Poland, in Italy, and in Sweden are exactly the same. One of the constants in Europe’s long history is the struggle against Islam; today, that struggle has simply returned to the foreground.
次の部分はオバマの非介入主義を評価しているところですが、ここでもthe long list (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and others I’m no doubt forgetting) of Muslim lands where the West has committed atrocitiesとイスラム教の土地であるとしています。イスラム関連の言及はこの程度ですが、イスラムへの反感のようなものを感じとってしまいます。
Enormous progress was made under Obama. Maybe he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a little too soon; but as far as I’m concerned, he truly earned it later, on the day when he refused to back Francois Hollande’s proposed attack on Syria. Obama’s attempts at racial reconciliation were less successful, and I don’t know your country well enough to understand exactly why; all I can do is regret the fact. But at the very least, Obama can be congratulated for not adding Syria to the long list (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and others I’m no doubt forgetting) of Muslim lands where the West has committed atrocities.
Trump is pursuing and amplifying the policy of disengagement initiated by Obama; this is very good news for the rest of the world.
The Americans are getting off our backs.
The Americans are letting us exist.
まあ新作が年明けに出るようなので、プロモーションも兼ねての今回のエッセーだったかもしれません。前作ではフランスでイスラム政権誕生という内容で騒然とさせましたが、今回は「幸せ」がテーマのようで、結婚したばかりで丸くなってしまったのではなんて書き方がされています。
Paris -Having praised Donald Trump last week as "one of the best American presidents", Michel Houellebecq, the ageing bad boy of French letters, may have another shock up his sleeve.
The controversial writer, who made his reputation with bestselling novels about sex tourism, swingers clubs and everyday misogyny, has called his next novel after the "happy chemical" which engenders well-being and happiness.
"Serotonin", which will be published in French on January 4, and then in Italian a week later, comes months after Houellebecq married for a third time, to a Chinese woman some two decades his junior.
Harper'sのこの号に関してはカバーストーリーのネットと民主主義の問題を取り上げたFred Turnerのエッセーの方が重要ですが、こっちの方が短かったので先に読んでしまいました。。。
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